About Me

Gregg Walker is a Harlem Resident and 1997 graduate of Yale Law School who worked as an investment banker for 9 years and was the Vice President of Strategy and Mergers & Acquisitions at Viacom for 3 years. Gregg served as the Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Sony from 2009 to 2016, and he launched his own private investing firm in July 2016 (www.gawalker.co). Gregg was chosen in 2010 by Crain's as one of NYC's 40 Under 40 Rising Stars (http://mycrains.crainsnewyork.com/40under40/profiles/2010/gregg-walker). Gregg is a Deacon at Abyssinian Baptist Church and served as the chairman of the Board of the Harlem YMCA. He has served on the Boards of movie studio MGM and music publishing companies Sony/ATV and EMI Music Publishing. He is also a Board member of Harlem RBI and Derek Jeter's Turn 2 Foundation. He is a former Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a representative of the US at the 2002 Young Leaders Conference of the American Council on Germany. Gregg is also a member of many other foundations and community organizations.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Governor Paterson Restricts Use of Stop-and-Frisk Data

While the abuse of communities of color through rampant stop-and-frisk activity targeting innocent New Yorkers will continue under the Bloomberg Administration, Governor Paterson has courageously signed legislation ending the practice of retaining the information collected in the abusive stop-and-frisk incidents. In the past, it had been held in perpetuity.

In communities of color, the Mayor's approach has fostered unnecessary tension and animosity between the community and the police. That tension and lack of trust endangers New Yorkers and promotes crime. Because they are routinely abused by the police, communities of color are less likely to cooperate with police, and criminals are emboldened by the knowledge that the community and the police are not coordinated and do not trust each other. Criminals are more dangerous when they know that the communities they plan to victimize are already being victimized by the police. Communities of color suffer as a result of this dynamic, and we are already seeing crime rates rising as well as increasing numbers of crimes going unsolved as a result of the Mayor's racist policing formula.

The End of the Database

While the Mayor has not been held accountable for the poor policing, racism, and destructive nature of his stop-and-frisk approach, the State Legislature and the Governor have taken action against the Mayor's database of innocent New Yorkers of color.

Until now, every one of the more than 500,000 innocent people stopped each year by the NYPD has had his or her information stored in a database controlled by the NYPD. That approach has resulted in law suits and additional anger in communities of color. In a classic case of adding insult to injury, the database consists of the personal information of people who have been abused by the NYPD.

In truth, the best way to prevent crime is to make the NYPD less of an abusive force in the lives of New Yorkers. Perhaps the elimination of the database will help convince the Mayor to turn the NYPD toward protecting New Yorkers instead of abusing them.

Today, we salute the New York State Legislature and Governor Paterson for improving lives and for standing up to the Mayor of New York City.